The invention relates generally to electrical connectors and, more particularly, to a straddle mount card edge connector that minimizes circuit board space consumed in mating circuit boards in a coplanar arrangement.
The trend toward smaller, lighter, and higher performance electrical components and higher density electrical circuits led to the development of surface mount technology in the design of printed circuit boards. As is well understood in the art, surface mountable packaging allows for the connection of the package to pads on the surface of the circuit board rather than by contacts or pins soldered in plated holes going through the circuit board. Surface mount technology allows for an increased component density on a circuit board, thereby saving space on the circuit board.
However, surface mount technology has become inadequate as electronic devices have become smaller making circuit board space even more limited. For example, large system servers are being replaced by smaller blade servers that include a chassis having multiple slots that receive modules or blades that provide a particular resource. Pluggable modules facilitate maintenance and upgrades in the blade server wherein modules may be unplugged and replacement modules plugged in. Circuit board space is at a premium in blade servers. In addition, due to space limitations, component heights must be kept small. Straddle mount card edge connectors mounted at the edge of the circuit board occupy a reduced amount of space on the circuit boards and offer a low profile height. However, when straddle mount connectors are used to connect circuit boards in a coplanar relationship, some circuit board space is still rendered unusable or consumed by the mating space required to insert the card into the card slot of the connector.
A need exists for a straddle mount card edge connector that maintains a low profile height while minimizing the mating space on the circuit board that is consumed when a card is inserted into the slot of the straddle mount card edge connector.